European Places Poem by Liilia Talts Morrison

Window-panes of memory scan
European places
Copper roofs with towers cragged
Rise from broken traces.

Was it Munich or Coblenz
Women wore silk stockings?
Pear trees kissed a sky quite cold
Tempting children's gazes.

Railroad stations big as barns
Silently embracing
Interrupted lives, quite torn
Fleeing timeworn spaces.

Did the farmer leave his kin,
Dog, goat, hand-hewn plow,
Did the old man miss his cat
Thrown from wagon's tow?

Rolands tall in stony pride
Still hold towns together
Foreign boots on cobblestones
Couldn't change the weather.

Shattered memories fill the mind
Much like cunning laces
Will the day break when they leave
European places?